Thought of by many to be one of the important women in technology, computer scientista4s‚ Anna Patterson left Google to found search engine Cuil ina4s‚ January of 2007. When things didn&'t turn out as planned (the $33 million-backed Cuil failed to upend Google or get acquired), we sort of a4s‚ lost track of what happened to the Cuil team.

Until now. Surprisingly enough ita4s‚ turns out Patterson is back at Google, where she was technical lead of one of the two ranking groups and in charge of GoogleBase from 2004 onwards. Her new title, according to her LinkedIn profile, is Director and other online evidence points out that she is more specifically &''Director of Google Research.&'' Her LinkedIn profile also reveals that she&'s been working at Google since September, which means she didn&'t waste any time getting back on the search horse after Cuil went offline.

Neither Google or Patterson have responded to my requests for confirmation or comment but Patterson&'s LinkedIn profile pretty much says it all. I&'ll update this post if I hear any more specifics about Patterson&'s role at Google or what happened to the rest of the Cuil team.